The QV-3000EX is blessed with a Type II CF slot, this means it'll take the traditional Type I package CF cards as well as the thicker Type II cards. This also means it supports the IBM Microdrive, at 340MB you'll be able to shoot about 250 images on the QV-3000EX's highest quality; FINE (about 1.2MB per image) or 342 images at NORMAL quality. (Or 56 TIFF's at 6.1 MB each)

That's what makes Casio's US offer of $999 for the QV-3000EX and a 340MB Microdrive so attractive, you'd never need to buy another CF card.

The CF slot itself is covered by a plastic door on the right side of the camera, there's a warning "access" light above the door which flashes indicating card access.

Behind a spring loaded hinge door on the left of the camera can be found all of the cameras connections:

• Digital (Serial RS232)
• USB connection
• Video out
• DC IN 6V

Ah. What were the designers thinking? Is this the only place they could have put the tripod mount?

Even back half an inch would have been better. There are three problems with this tripod mount, first it's on the edge of the body which means on certain mounts it'll tip the camera forward a tiny fraction and mean the camera won't be stable on the mount plate, secondly it's not aligned with the focal plane (or lens center) which make it fairly useless for shooting panoramas (though not many digicams do have correctly aligned tripod mounts), thirdly it's plastic.. Which means it won't last as long as it could.

The flash on the QV-3000EX is a little deceiving in its design, it has a large stylised window on the case behind which lurks a smaller flash unit.

The manual quotes specifications of approx. 0.5m - 4m. You can find flash test results in the features section of this review.